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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610008">you'll remember me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallestbrown/pseuds/smallestbrown'>smallestbrown</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Memory Alteration, Post-The Unknowing (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James Lives, Tim's memories are still wrong but Sasha Will Not Stand For It, tim stoker lives</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:35:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,142</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610008</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallestbrown/pseuds/smallestbrown</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Circus, after the knowing and the Unknowing and after everything went so deeply to shit—after four people went into the wax factory to <i>die</i>—five people came out.</p><p>“So how about this,” This Sasha says. She leans forward, business-like. “You tell me something you remember about me, and I tell you whether it’s true or not."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sasha James &amp; Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Tim Stoker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>215</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you'll remember me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<em>Sooo</em>,” Tim drawls. “You’re… Sasha.”</p><p>The woman on his couch shrugs, shaky, but she looks him in the eye. “I am.”</p><p>She looks so small, sitting in the middle of his living room like that. The kettle is warming up, hissing quietly—<em>Maybe some tea, for this conversation</em>, she had suggested—and Tim is keeping a careful distance from her, sticking to the kitchen island.</p><p>“You understand why I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this, right?” Tim asks sharply. He can’t even keep the frustration out of his voice—hasn’t bothered not to for a very long time. Not since the Sasha he <em>thought</em> he knew grew twice her size and four times as many limbs, and Tim realized that he and kindness couldn’t fit in the same room anymore.</p><p>“Jon <em>told </em>you I was taken. You know that your memories aren’t… right.”</p><p>“Doesn’t make it easier to believe,” he grumbles. She huffs.</p><p>Sasha has sat there before, is the thing, and Tim remembers her like this: goofy and loud, watching him mop up the water he’d snorted out of his nose after a particularly bad joke.<em>Oh no, Tim</em>, she’d laughed, when he told her she should help, <em>you did this to yourself</em>. TV still playing old Jeopardy episodes, she kicked her feet a little when she’d get the answer right.</p><p>He remembers her like this: blurry and smiling, his first birthday after joining the Institute. She’d walked him home after too many drinks, and Tim had whined loud enough that she’d agreed to stay the night on the pull-out couch. Hair like a halo on his spare pillow, and snoring just the tiniest bit, she’d felt like something to hope for.</p><p>He remembers her like this: soft and silent, his head in her lap and her fingers running through his hair. She listened to him talk about Danny in clipped, unintelligent sentences, and instead of condolences, she offered the promise, uttered quiet and firm, that they would kill whatever had taken him.</p><p>He does <em>not </em>remember her like this: the way she is now. Like putting something in the wash and picking it out again, shrunk and dyed the wrong color. He’s lost track of how those things are and aren’t meant to overlap; she’s not quite <em>his </em>Sasha, and she’s not the <em>Not </em> Sasha.</p><p>“How about this,” This Sasha says. She leans forward, business-like. “You tell me something you remember about me, and I tell you whether it’s true or not."</p><p>Tim’s mouth twists with reluctance.</p><p>"I can do the same for you, if you like,” she adds.</p><p>“You can’t just tell me yourself?”</p><p>After the Circus, after the knowing and the Unknowing and after everything went so deeply to shit—after four people went into the wax factory to <em>die </em>—five people came out. This Sasha rose from the brick and dust and rubble bewildered and confused, until her eyes landed on him; her face flooded with relief, and she threw her arms around him and said his name into his neck with such emotion that—</p><p>Tim feels bad, now, for having pushed her away with such force. His heart had been beating too loudly, and frankly—he should have been dead. He didn’t have time for more strangers.</p><p>This Sasha had said he’d make some.</p><p>Her eyes on him now stay steady. They should be blue, but they aren’t.</p><p>“Maybe I want to hear you say it,” she says.</p><p>The kettle clicks off.</p><p>Tim turns away. “Alright, then.”</p><p>“Great,” she claps. “I’ll start. You played rugby in secondary. Briefly considered going for a sports scholarship in sixth form, but you liked books too much.”</p><p>“True,” Tim concedes. He grabs two mugs from the cupboard and brings them to the counter. “I told you that, what, during my first month at the Institute?”</p><p>“Yup. Do you remember when?” Tim tries to ignore the hopeful note in her voice, but the problem is he does remember—he just can’t remember<em> right</em>.</p><p>Instead, he nods and smiles at her remorsefully, meeting her eyes across the room. This Sasha purses her lips, but nods back. “Fine,” she says, dismissive and curt. “Now, you.”</p><p>Tim’s hands hesitate over the tea drawer before looking up at her. “You... liked English Breakfast tea?” He can’t stop the way it comes out like a question.</p><p>This Sasha gets this little smile at the corner of her lips, and she nods quickly a few times. “True. Martin makes it too strong though, so I—”</p><p>“Watered it down. When he wasn’t looking.” Tim swallows. “Yeah.”</p><p>It should warm him, he thinks, that he’s right. Instead, something falls hard and heavy to the pit of his stomach, and all he can see is Not Sasha, holding a finger to her lips with a wink in his direction as Martin brings him a cup of tea. Who’s to say whether that really was or wasn’t her.</p><p>Tim picks out the tea bags, and makes his way to the couch. They sit further apart than Tim, even with his twisted-up memories, thinks they ever have.</p><p>“Your turn,” he says.</p><p>She casts her eyes around the room, searching for inspiration. Her eyes land on the bathroom door. “You’ve got a weird thing about brushing your teeth.”</p><p>Tim’s laugh surprises him. “Sorry?”</p><p>“Yeah! You’re obsessive about it. You have <em>way</em> too many spares under the sink. And you have this little travel toothbrush you bring to work, and you <em>always</em> take a longer lunch break so you can go use it. Sometimes you even bring it to the pub on Thursdays!”</p><p>“Fine, fine,” Tim waves a hand in the air. It doesn’t escape him that this whole time, This Sasha has been speaking in present tense, when Tim can barely remember the last time he went out for a drink for a reason other than to forget. “True in practice, but <em>jeez.</em> <em>Weird about teeth </em>is what you come up with? Seriously?”</p><p>“Facts are facts, Tim.” She looks pleased.</p><p>“Okay, then,” says Tim. “You were a huge Greek mythology kid.”</p><p>“True,” she admits with a wry smile. “You’re kind of a horse girl.”</p><p>“True! They’re majestic creatures and I will never deny that. You… are allergic to apricots.”</p><p>“True. You don’t like pickles.”</p><p>“True. You’re a sore loser.”</p><p>“Oh, <em>am </em>I?” This Sasha grins.</p><p>“Yes, you are—remember game night, back in Research? Practically <em>flipped </em>the board over. Not your proudest moment.”</p><p>“That—is true,” she admits, head held high, “but I maintain that Rosie cheated. You dyed your hair pink in college. You said your ex called you Pinkie Pie for a <em>month</em>.”</p><p>“True,” Tim smiles, but it fades quickly as something starts to nag at him. Some joke he’d made to Sasha when he’d first told her that story: he’d called her Lucy Brown because of her hair, because they’d been listening to <em>Mack the Knife </em>over her stereo.</p><p>Tim frowns. He glances at This Sasha, knowing he does not remember her like this. All his memories of her—of <em>his </em>Sasha—they’re all wearing the wrong face. Even with the right one sitting on his couch, he can’t get them to overlap in the proper way.</p><p> “You’re... blonde,” he says, solemn and unhappy. He watches her take a deep breath and look away. “And... short. Your eyes are blue, your... voice should be lower.”</p><p>This Sasha dodges his eyes and rolls her shoulders back. “False. Blonde and blue-eyed? No. Short? At one point, yeah.” Her tone is even and casual, but she still won’t look at him. “But not since puberty. I went on a date with a guy once who said if we were gonna make it work, I wasn’t allowed to wear heels.”</p><p>“Asshole,” Tim says without thinking, but it earns him a smirk.</p><p>“Yeah,” she says, quietly. “Knew you’d say that.”</p><p>She picks up her cup and cradles it in her hands, staring at the tea as it steeps. The silence is—ok, for now, he decides. This Sasha sits cross-legged on the couch, facing him, but her leg is jittering. She’s wearing his old Trinity College sweatshirt and gym shorts, and her hair is still damp from the shower.</p><p>If she’s bothered by his staring, This Sasha doesn’t let on. She hunches over the warmth from her cup; it fogs up her glasses a little.</p><p>Tim thinks about the wrong sweater again. He does not remember her like this.</p><p>Anger, then guilt, flare fast and vicious in his gut. Hot and familiar.</p><p>Tim swallows them down—because This Sasha doesn’t remember him like <em>that</em>.</p><p>“The Not-Them work in big ideas,” she says, eventually. “Broad strokes are easy to rewrite; details, not so much.”</p><p>“Jon said as much,” Tim relents. “The Stranger doesn’t like minutiae, so some things slip through the cracks. It’s all that stuff that doesn’t fit right that it really thrives on.”</p><p>He doesn’t think about how it would probably be having a field day from their conversation. The silence lingers a little. He takes a deep breath.</p><p>“Seriously though, no blonde phase? Not even in college?”</p><p>She laughs. “I don’t think I could pull it off.”</p><p>“Rubbish. You’ve just got to set your mind to it.”</p><p>“That must be it, yeah.” She finally looks up again, meets his eyes, and Tim can’t help but think again that they’re the wrong color. They should be—blue, he thinks. No, wait, green. Grey. </p><p><em> Huh</em>.</p><p>“My turn,” This Sasha says firmly. “Details. You had two dogs? Growing up.”</p><p>“Names or it never happened,” Tim objects.</p><p>“Cheater. Argh...” This Sasha snaps her fingers, “I don’t know. Something from <em>The Labyrinth</em>? They were both David Bowie names.”</p><p>“True. And I’ll thank you to refer to Thomas Jerome Newton and Jareth the Goblin King by their<em> full </em>titles.”</p><p>“My sincerest apologies,” she says, taking a sip of her tea. “Your turn.”</p><p>“An easy one: you’re allergic to cats.”</p><p>“True, to my own dismay.” She points at his leg. “You have a scar on your knee from doing a five-legged race when you were fourteen, and it never went away.”</p><p>Tim smirks. “True, yeah. We won though! So that counts for something.”</p><p>This Sasha’s smile softens. “Do you... remember when you told me that?”</p><p>Tim works his jaw. “I remember,” he says, looking away. Guilt broils in his gut.</p><p>“I think it’ll help,” she adds, serious, when he doesn’t explain further. “Even if you remember... <em>wrong </em>.”</p><p>In his memory, it’s the face of Not Sasha that greeted him at the office Christmas party. That kissed him under the twinkling snow, and shared a cab ride back to his flat. She’d asked him about the scar the morning after, over eggs on the stove and coffee in the kitchen, running her thumb up and down it until he’d kissed her teasing smile and their food and drinks went cold.</p><p>He looks back at This Sasha. “I remember,” he repeats, “I just…hate not knowing <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it? Learning each other?”</p><p>Tim stays quiet. If this were <em>his </em>Sasha, he’d know it like it was written on his palms, just like he knows anything about her. Carved there through time spent and time earned, and so many other feelings he’s since forgotten how to have. He feels like all he has are questions, and all they do is drip like sand.</p><p>Maybe that’s why This Sasha wanted him to say it. Maybe she wants the questions to sound more like facts, too.</p><p>“Ok. My turn,” says This Sasha. She lets out a breath and looks at him, and Tim, maybe the first time, really, <em>really</em>, looks at This Sasha. Not just in broad strokes, but in details: dark curly hair tucked behind her ears, glasses slipping down her nose. One eyebrow that’s just always a little crooked. A small mole along the line of her jaw, another one on her nose, peaking out beneath the bridge of her glasses. Eyes large, and wide-set, and—</p><p>Brown.</p><p>Sasha’s eyes are brown, and it’s like a dam bursts in Tim’s chest.</p><p>“You’re my best friend,” Sasha says, with all the solemnity of someone who was torn from themselves and rose from the grave and has decided, unambiguously, that they know what they want. “You’re my best friend and you know me better than anyone. And I really, <em>really </em>don’t want to lose you, Tim.”</p><p>Tim’s voice is thick. “I don’t want to lose you either."</p><p>It might be the first thing he’s said all night that hasn’t half-sounded like a question.</p><p>Her face fills with such relief, erupting into daybreak and the smallest, purest joy, and—it’s not a sight Tim knows well. Not yet. But something burrowed deep down inside his chest breaks over the horizon, and somehow, somewhere, Tim knows that it’s a sight he’s always loved.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this was gonna be a fic, then a comic, then i drew most-but-not-all of the comic, then i just really wanted to share the fic anyway so! hope you enjoyed! tim and sasha are alive and okay and i love them.<br/>EDIT: IT IS ACTUALLY ALSO <a href="https://smallestbrown.tumblr.com/post/632003022335164416/after-the-circus-after-the-knowing-and-the">A COMIC</a></p><p>leave a comment n kudos if you enjoyed! and I'm also on <a href="https://smallestbrown.tumblr.com">tumblr</a> and <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/smallestbrown">twitter</a>, come down and hang</p></blockquote></div></div>
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